Ohana
by Cate Eliot
Summary: The events following Steve's rescue and get away on the chopper. A little one shot following the episode "Ki'ilua" featuring all of the team and their enduring friendships. Complete.


**A/N: Just a little one shot about the events following Steve's rescue in Ki'ilua. All characters, quotes, and plot lines belong to CBS and associates. Please review!**

Steve McGarrett was struggling to remain conscious. He was vaguely aware that Chin and Danny were helping him into what appeared to be an ancient helicopter. The pain in his body was so overwhelming that he felt nauseous with each step forward.

A thick fogginess was surrounding his mind and the only words that penetrated his brain were those of his father. _"Real men, Steve, aren't afraid of anyone. They are strong when everyone else falls. They do not bow to pain."_ The agony was pounding instead of his heart. The comforting words from the others were drowned out by the mantra of it.

Steve could only hear bits and pieces of the conversation. Chin's voice was speaking now as they were loading into the opening of the 'copter. Danny climbed in and helped him on, carefully. Through his blurry vision he could clearly see the horror on his partner's face as he scanned his body up and down, assessing the damage done.

He slid back stiffly unable to get comfortable. He felt himself lean backwards as Franks raised the bird into air. A hand firmly took his shoulder and a sense of security overwhelmed him when he recognized it as the knobby, scarred hand that belonged to his old commanding officer.

"It's goin' to be all right, Son."

He rested his head on the back of Joe's knee and felt the hand slid into a reassuring spot on the back of his neck, pressing down lightly every few seconds. It took him a while to realize that Joe was checking his pulse, making sure he was still there with them, alive.

There was suddenly a loud jibe created by several voices that penetrated the fog in McGarrett's mind. _"and buy her a bed!"_ radiated to him and the sound of laughter.

Forcing himself to focus, McGarrett tried to take account of his team. Swaying back and forth alarmingly, he saw Danny and Chin clearly before recognizing some of his companions from Seal Team 9. Kono and Lori weren't anywhere to be found.

He opened his mouth to ask where they were, but a sudden wave a smoke clouded over his vision and he slumped forward. Joe caught him by the chest and repositioned him on his leg.

"Took longer than I expected," Glutches said after a moment, nodding towards Steve. Joe nodded once, but kept an arm securely on McGarrett.

"Steve's always been stubborn," Joe murmured quietly.

"Is…Is he going to be alright?" Danny asked, carefully. His eyes found Joe's and the Commander could clearly see the inexperience and the raw terror in the younger man's eyes.

"Steve's a fighter, he'll pull through. We need to get medical attention as soon as we land," Joe informed him. There was tension that accompanied his words. The members of Seal Team 9 stood quietly at the post. The looks in their eyes were not a confidence builder in Danny's eyes.

Chin leaned back in his chair and forced himself to look away from Steve. Taking deep breaths he calmed himself down before resisting the urge to vomit. He had seen a lot of scarring things in his career as a cop and on Five 0, but nothing compared to seeing McGarrett's tortured body hanging on by a thread.

The tense emotion in the air lasted until they reached down at a hospital air strip. No one spoke. The adrenalin slowly eeked out of the cracks of the helicopter, leaving everyone drained. The only movement was Joe's hand, continuing to take Steve's pulse every few minutes.

"Joe, I'm going to pick up Miss Lori and the littl' lady back at the house," Franks shouted over the mayhem that was ensuing. Nurse and doctors swarmed over the returning party and the chaos was pandemonium. "You take care of your boy. I'll be back with the others soon."

Joe had one hand on Steve's gurney and opened his mouth to shout out a thank you before he lost sight of Franks and the others. The doctors were shouting out all sorts of things at him and he found himself unable to focus. The thing he was focused on was keeping his hand on the gurney; holding onto Steve.

"Sir? Sir? Who are you?"

A brown haired and severely freckled woman shouted as they rolled McGarrett inside.

He opened his mouth to answer, but a man grabbed his backwards as they shoved Steve through two swinging double doors. It took all his will power not to attack the man. "Sir, you can't go in there. They're prepping him for surgery as we speak. Hello? Sir?"

He was led back to a private winged room. Around him was an ocean of white. White walls, white cabinets, white floors. White, white, white. He heard more people talking, but his mind was somewhere else. Listening to someone else's voice.

"_John? John can you hear me?" _

"_Joe! Sorry, the reception is bad over here. How are you?" The man's voice was friendly, relaxed. _

"_John?" The crackle of the satellite phone was longer than Joe's voice. "John, it's Steve."_

_There was a clear hiccup in John McGarrett's breath. "Wh-what happened?" The friendly and well-mannered tone was no longer there. "Is he all right?"_

"_Mission was made…there was an accident…" Joe's voice was crackled out. "It's bad, John." _

_You could clearly hear something being violently hit on the other side of the line. Joe cringed back. "Damn it! How bad, Joe?"_

"_Docs said 30%. He's still in surgery. We got him out, but the damage was already done…I'm sorry, John. I thought he was just running behind. We didn't realize he was taken." Joe's voice cracked and he cleared his throat. _

"_How…"_

"_There were civilians under fire and he decided to play hero," there was a tone of both admiration and annoyance in the Commander's voice. _

"_That sounds like Steve," the older McGarrett replied dryly._

"_I'm sorry, John. I should have found him soon…I…I-"_

"_No, you found him. That's what matters. Can I—Do…do you think he would want to see me?" _

"_I think Steve always wants to see you, but we're on a secure military base and I can't tell you where. I'm sorry, John."_

"'_snot your fault," John McGarrett replied heavily. "Will you call me after the surgery's done?"_

"_Of course."_

"_And watch over him for me, Joe. Please."_

"_I always will."_

Joe shook as he reentered the room. "Sir?"

He snapped into military mode. "Commander Joe White. Navy. The man you just took in, was Lt. Commander Steve McGarrett currently Five 0 in Hawaii. We just arrived from a secure mission on Korean soil. McGarrett was just rescued after an unknown amount of time of torture from heavily trained enemies. He's blood type AB negative. Age 31. Aprox. 200 pounds and 6 feet tall," he rattled off from memory.

The woman blinked quickly and scrambled to write it all down. "Who are you in relations to the victim?"

"I-" he blinked quickly and recovered with—"former commanding officer in the Navy."

Her name tag read Darla.

She nodded quickly and put a lock of hair behind her ear. "Okay, thank you Commander. I will keep you update when we know something on your man."

Joe blinked once. She smiled sheepishly. "My brother was a petty officer on the USS New York. I know my lingo."

Joe smiled and nodded. "Thank you."

She disappeared through the door as Danny appeared. "What's the status on Steve?" The urgency was evident on his face.

"Sit down and take a load off, Son. Steve's in surgery. The only thing we can do is wait."

Danny had changed into clean clothes; his pair of khaki pants and a white button up shirt were wrinkled and his hair was anything but neat. He had dark and deep circles under his eyes and were very evident on his pale face.

Joe folded his hands over one another and stared at the door. It was beginning to get dark as the sun quickly disappeared behind another building. The magazines held to interest to the old SEAL as the minutes dragged on.

It wasn't long before Danny's nervousness broke the silence.

"Have-have you ever done this before?"

Joe's blue eyes glanced over at him and he could see the raw emotions raging in the young cop. "Many times."

"Any with Steve?"

Joe cleared his throat. "I'm sorry to say that this isn't Steve's first rodeo…" He trailed off, hoping McGarrett wouldn't kill him later. The Commander knew that this was not something Steve was comfortable talking about.

"Steve's…he's been…before?" Danny stopped shortly and Joe watched him intently. The young man couldn't seem to choke out the word '_torture'_.

Joe didn't acknowledge or deny.

"The first time we were riding to a crime scene, he was driving my car and he had hit the radio to some god awful song and I joked with him that I knew he was trained to endure torture but… and he looked at me long and hard and didn't banter back…" Danny's voice faded away and he returned to staring at the wall.

"Training to endure torture is a very different thing than experiencing it first hand," Joe said slowly. "In training you know somewhere in the back of your mind that this isn't real and that you aren't going to die. These people don't want something from you. There are people standing by to help. But when it's actually happening…it is very real."

Joe watched Danny's face twitch as he tried not to imagine anything like that occurring. Another length silence fell over them. This one was not interrupted.

Hours dragged by in what seemed like an eternity. News finally arrived with the dawning sun. "Commander White?" Joe rose up out of his seat quickly enough to wake Danny's half nap.

"Yes?"

"McGarrett has just come out of surgery. If you would follow me please," the doctor said, clutching a clip board in one hand and opening the door with the other.

Joe was out of the door with surprising speed and Danny struggled to keep up. "We're putting him into a room now, but I thought you would want to look at the x-rays before you go on in."

The Asian doctor led them to a cramped room when a single x-ray lighting box. "Commander McGarrett has quite a few broken ribs, six broken at the base near his spine. Four on the left, two on the right. Luckily there was no damage to the spinal cord that could be paralyzing. There were several superficial wounds that will be deep enough to scar. We patched those up easily and successfully.

"The torture," Danny cringed at the use of the word, but the doctor pretended not to notice, "that seemed to do the most damage was the excessive use of electric shocks. Whomever was doing this knew their anatomy and knew how to cause damage without killing off their target. The burn wounds were nasty, but will fade soon enough with time, but the aftereffects—" he indicated with his hand —"seemed to do some concise damage. Unfortunately we don't have the equipment to test let alone fix that kind of wound here. I would suggest as soon as you arrive back in your country that you send him straight to a military hospital. They would know what to look for.

"There were several mixed martial arts inflicted wounds. Slight internal bleeding from the kidneys and the liver should heal over time with rest. I'm most concerned about the wounds begin open too early and causing hemorrhaging. I know you all will be anxious to return home with your SEAL, but I would wait a few days in the least before trying to make the journey home."

Kono and Lori were as anxious to see Steve. The drive to the hospital was impatient and Chin Ho wasn't sure how he felt. "Did he say anything?" Kono bombarded him again with more questions. Her "mother duck" side seemed to be blossoming.

"Kid, I need you to just relax. Danny called and said surgery was successful, but it's going to be a while before he wakes up and feels up to talking."

Chin nervously tapped the steering wheel and watched Kono out of the corner of his eye. She was already disappointed that she wasn't able to come on the rescue mission and even more upset when they arrived back to Frank's house and Steve wasn't there.

But he wasn't sure how his baby cousin was going to react seeing their fearless leader's torture, battered, and bloody body. To Kono, Steve was the boss. The one who always knew what to do, what to say. Ever since her father died, he had taken care of Kono. It had become his job. And when she decided to become a cop, he was thrilled and encouraged her every step of the way. But the worry of her delicate soul always whispered in the back of his mind.

He flashed his badge at the door and the man pointed him the direction of Steve's room. He nodded his thanks and Kono bounded ahead with him and Lori trailing behind slightly.

"Think he's going to be all right?" Lori voiced the concern echoing over both of their minds.

"I think we're about to see," Chin answered neutrally.

He could hear voices coming from Steve's room. He smiled as Danny's voice escalated above the others. "Babe, do what the doc says and take the damn pain meds. If you don't, I will."

Lori cracked and grin and pushed through the door. Steve was propped up in the hospital bed, bruised, bloodied, and wrapped in several layers of gauze.

One of his eyes was blacked and swollen, but he seemed alert and awake. "Hey, man. How ya feeling?" Chin greeted him.

"Peachy," Steve said drily, rolling his one good eye. "Think I might go for swim in a bit. You know stretch my legs. Anyone want to join me?"

"Get up and so help me I will handcuff your ass to that bed and your SEAL team buddies won't be able to save you," Danny threatened. Both women laughed and Chin smirked at Danny's sudden overprotectiveness.

Kono sat on the bed covers with Danny hovering over him. Chin leaned against the door frame, allowing Lori to take the chair next to his bed.

"We were so worried," she said, thickly.

Chin had always suspected that Lori had a thing for Steve. The homeland agent sometimes gazed at him, when she thought he wasn't looking. But Steve hadn't made a move to approach the subject or even talk about her advances.

There was a sharp knock on the door and Joe White entered with a falsely cheery smile. He had a bag in his hand and a large phone. "Got someone that wants to talk to you, son," he said lightly, handing Steve a large, black satellite phone.

Danny's face crinkled in confusion, but Joe just smiled as Steve took the phone and put it to his ear.

"Cath?" he breathed, relief flooding his voice.

"Steve?" Catherine's voice could clearly be heard through the large satellite phone. "Steve! Thank God. Are you all right? Joe said Wo Fat—"

"It's just some scrapes, Cath. I'll be all right," he said, clearly trying to soothe her. Chin watched as Steve's eyes focused on the white wall in front of him, no longer focusing on the visitors in his room.

There was a crackle on the line and Catherine's next line was drowned out. "I know," Steve said quietly. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Lori's face scrunch up in a frown. "I will. I'll see you soon. Bye, Cath."

He looked deject as he ended the call, the phone finding a large in the many blankets on his lap. Exhaustion was clear in his eyes. The visiting was taking its toll.

The Commander seemed to notice his as well and help up the bag in his hand. Sitting it on the edge of the bed, he unwrapped it reveal a box of beers.

"Beer for us. Fluids for you."

Steve glared slightly at Joe's offered orange juice, but took the glass anyways. The beers were passed around quickly, despite the ugly looks the nurses gave from the hallway.

"To Ohana," Chin toasted.

"Here, here."

Steve cracked a swollen smile and clinked his hospital cup against the beers around him.

"Ohana," repeated, swallowing a large mouthful of orange juice. Even after the mission, somewhere, each of them knew it would be all right if they stuck together.


End file.
